What little girl doesn’t jump for joy over being asked to be the flower girl in a family wedding?
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A hurdle this child is facing before she can attend the wedding has to do with how a judge and lawyers treat her rights and her father’s rights. They simply need one extra day to make the travel possible for her to go to California and back. They need one extra day without interference, without trading the child’s joy and making it harder for her to celebrate this experience. The history of family conflict and history of unsavory behavior by court professionals prompted the filing of The Flower Girl Motion.
What will the judge do?
Will the judge grant The Flower Girl Motion?
Will the Cobb County Superior Court Judge grant the little girl the freedom she needs to enjoy participating in her uncle’s wedding as his flower girl?
I know that being a flower girl in a family wedding was one of my fondest memories as a child. Traveling to be with our extended family and getting to dress up and spread flowers on the bride’s path was a priceless experience. I loved dancing, posing in photos, and most importantly, walking down that aisle with all eyes on me and my partner, the ring-bearer, just before the beautiful bride entered. The sounds of joy around me, coming from friends and family, that’s what I remember most vividly.
Who would not want that for a child who is invited to attend, not just to go but to really enjoy it? It could be that inhibiting the girl’s joy and peace benefits the lawyer who is profiting from prolonging and worsening family conflict in Cobb County, Georgia. If this lawyer is at least part of the problem, it would not be surprising. This is a problem I’ve documented in hundreds of cases in this area. The problem often shows up in the eyes of children whose joy has been robbed.
Have you ever heard of a parent having to file a motion in court to make that experience possible? I have, and I wanted to make sure we get to talk about this because something simple and easy has become complicated over how the family has been treated in litigation.
She only needs one extra day to make the trip possible. That’s the solution if the court will grant the motion, “The Flower Girl Motion.“
What is the problem that led to this motion being filed?
First, in this situation, filing a motion to protect the flower girl’s desire to be with her daddy’s family is the right thing to do. In this situation, the court needs to intervene.
In this situation, given the court’s history of worsening conflict and making this type of motion necessary, it’s the right thing for the court to do to just say, “Yes, flower girl, you have the time available to you to make this trip and without strife or sacrifice.”
The core issue that made filing a motion for a flower girl necessary is the behavior of lawyers, including a guardian ad litem, and the judge with whom they are friends and allies. This would not be a red flag for me except for the fact that this alliance results in greater stress and less stability for children in Georgia.
I know this case well and personally witnessed the manipulation, the unethical abuse of power, and much more, by the professionals in this case. This behavior exploited for profit the desire of this child to have the best of both parents in her life and in a meaningful way. Her life is worse for their involvement, which prompts me to share her story.
One of the ways I can show that power was abused in litigation is how the judge, while allowing some recording, would not allow the guardian to be recorded. In her testimony, she made knowingly false statements about the father, disregarding evidence against the mother while condemning a safe, loving father. This guardian did favors for the mother’s lawyer and the judge helped prevent transparency by preventing a recording of this false testimony and the coordinated scheme to injure the father – hurting his daughter at the same time.
I’m not here to point fingers at the mother, even while things are unnecessarily stressful for the little flower girl and her father’s family, because she would have learned to be more cooperative if it had not been for the money-grabbing antics of her lawyer. That’s just my opinion, but it’s based on over a decade of documenting similar patterns of behavior. It is simply more profitable for certain lawyers to increase and prolong conflict, and one of the ways this is done is by making the client behave even worse towards the other parent – and, yes, often the child.
When a lawyer knows that the facts and evidence are not in his client’s favor, but he indulges and worsens his client’s behavior (negatively impacting the child and the parent-child relationships), it forces fees to go up and time available for the child to go down, destabilizing the entire family. This is why I write and call attention to motions and hearings spawned from these avoidable problems.
Click here to read the original Flower Girl motion and here for the amended motion.
The more we pay attention and the more we show up for parents and children in family law cases, the better their chance of surviving it and coming out on the other side with each other and ideally with peace of mind.